No. 28. — 1884.] first fifty jatakas. 



179 



and entered the city. Thenceforward in this same way he went 

 there from time to time and made offerings as if he were a votary 

 of such deities. Afterwards, on his father's death, he succeeded 

 to the throne and reigned righteously, avoiding the four bad ways, 

 and never violating the ten royal duties. Then he thought : " My 

 desire is accomplished ; I am established in the kingdom ; now I 

 will accomplish a certain purpose which I entertained of old." 

 So he gathered together his ministers and his Brahmins and his 

 householders and the rest ; and said to them : " Know ye by what 

 means I came to the kingdom ?" " Sire, we know not," they said. 

 " Have you ever seen me making offerings of perfumes and the 

 like to a certain tree, and worshipping it with clasped hands." 

 " Yes sire." " At that time I made this vow : 'If I come to the 

 kingdom, I will do sacrifice to thee.' It is by the power of that 

 deity that I have got the kingdom. Now I shall do sacrifice to 

 her ; you do your utmost quickly to prepare a sacrifice for the 

 tree-goddess." " What victims shall we get sire?"* " Friends, 

 when I made my prayer (or vow) to the goddess, I vowed that I 

 would slay and offer in sacrifice, with entrails, flesh, and blood, 

 all those who in my kingdom shall live in the open practice of the 

 five forbidden acts and the ten ways of demerit. Therefore do 

 you proclaim this by beat of drum : ' Our king, when he was sub- 

 king, made this vow : If I come to the kingdom I will slay and 

 offer in sacrifice all those in my kingdom who are breakers of the 

 precepts : and now he intends to slay a thousand of the precept- 

 breakers who live in open practice of the tenfold forbidden con- 

 duct, and to have their hearts and flesh taken and sacrificed to the 

 goddes3 ; let all dwellers in the city take notice!' (This proclama- 

 tion you are to make, and) after this announcement, if any now 

 henceforth live in the practice of the forbidden actions, I will slay 

 a thousand of them and offer an offering, and be free from my 

 vow." While proclaiming that intention he uttered this stanza: — 



" I vowed a vow, a thousand fools in sacrifice to slay ; 

 I'll pay it now, for wicked men are plentiful to-day." 



The ministers hearing the words of the Bodhisat, said : " It is 

 well sire," and had the drum beat through the twelve-yoj ana- 

 broad city of Benares. When the decree by beat of drum was 

 heard, there was not a single man found to abide in the open 

 practice of the forbidden conduct. Thenceforth, as long as the 

 Bodhisat reigned, not one individual was discovered committing 



* Devatd, of course a mistake for devd, as F. suggests. 

 28-85 F 



